Realising the potential of optoelectronics in the IIOT

The market size of the optoelectronic industry in 2015, including LEDs, lasers and optical sensors, was over $35bn and this highly fragmented field has outpaced the CAGR of the integrated circuit market since the mid-1990s. With the continued growth over the next five years predicted, new end use applications such as medical and automotive devices shall continue this trend at the same rate (11% growth in 2015) mainly due to the increased adoption of smart devices and the industrial IoT.

Optoelectronic applications are based on high value manufacturing and complex supply chains. Inkron’s turnkey packaging service combined with advanced proprietary materials offers application developers a fast path to markets. To achieve their ultimate performance, next generation optoelectronic devices require a range of speciality materials. These may include advanced die attach, optical underfill, light scattering and encapsulation enabling increased light coupling, wavelength conversion, better thermal management, electrical connectivity and increased device lifetime.

Inkron’s material designers and process specialists help its customers achieve fast turn-around times for prototyping and easy route to evaluate their packaging concepts and designs - while also providing companies with access to small to medium volume packaging and the potential for further improvements in device performance. Inkron’s turnkey packaging service also provides a scalable solution for easy transfer to third party high volume production facilities. This allows clients to avoid costly start-up costs and NRE expenses often prohibiting multiple design evaluations when bringing speciality packaging to market.

“The initial orders of specialty optoelectronic devices which include for example novel white light anti-bacterial LEDs to hospitals’ smart disinfection approach are now being processed,” the company’s Chief Executive Dr Juha Rantala explained. “Our emphasis is in utilising our leading position in enabling siloxane-based packaging materials by providing services for specialised high value added markets in industrial applications such as additive manufacturing and healthcare optoelectronics. Our initial customers are smart photonics system developers and manufacturers who need customised optical components in small to medium volume runs.”

The platform technology materials and processes utilised under Inkron’s turnkey solution are thoroughly tested for reliability, environmental stability and safety. The service also provides clients with an opportunity to characterise novel R&D materials and processes within a production environment. Inkron can provide specialised turnkey optoelectronic packaging solutions for primarily plastic lead frame, metal core, ceramic, silicon and FR4 type substrates. Looking forward, together with its partners, Inkron will introduce turnkey solutions for next generation wafer and panel level packaging processes in the next 12 months.